The present invention relates to a floppy disk driver and, particularly, to a floppy disk driver intended to protect a floppy disk from damage and wear when it is mounted on the driver.
Generally, when a floppy disk is mounted on a floppy disk driver by being inserted between the spindle and collet, the center hole of the disk is caught by the rotating spindle and the collet so that the disk is centered by being guided at its center hole along the tapered circumferential surface of the collet. The reason for turning the spindle during the centering operation is to prevent the deformation and damage at the edge of the center hole of the pliable floppy disk.
However, in the conventional floppy disk driver, when a floppy disk is mounted or inserted with its spindle kept turning, there is a possibility that the turning spindle strongly hits the edge of the disk center hole, causing damage to the edge of the hole.
There are proposals for protecting the floppy disk from damage during the mounting operation as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,409,629 and 4,413,294, in which the collet is first moved laterally so that it fits in the disk hole and then the collet is positioned to the spindle. These floppy disk drivers, however, result in a complex structure.